Platonic Quotes

“Insecure attachment is a way for us to protect ourselves from the milk spills of connection, but it’s a system gone haywire. We keep others at a distance to protect ourselves, but this also harms us. We reject before potentially being rejected to protect ourselves, but this also harms us. We cling to protect ourselves, but this also harms us. At some point, all the self-protection becomes self-harm.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Borey and Sherry’s story also reveals how anxious people often misfire, projecting rejection in benign circumstances.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Mario Mikulincer, an attachment expert and professor at Bar-Ilan University, wrote that “whereas avoidant attachment is associated with overt narcissism or grandiosity, which includes both self-praise and denial of weaknesses, attachment anxiety is associated with covert narcissism, characterized by self-focused attention, hypersensitivity to other people’s evaluations, and an exaggerated sense of entitlement.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“For vulnerable narcissists, or to some extent for anxious people (and avoidants too, for that matter), there’s so much attention given to how others are slighting them that this concern eclipses their evaluation of how they treat people.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Secure people, because of their history of available and abundant love, internalize the sense that they are connected to others—a sense that stays with them, even when rejected. Anxious people have no such resources. When others reject or leave them, the loneliness feels omnipresent and unbearable. They might feel, as Carolina described, “like a piece of paper burned down to its ash.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“rejected. Anxious people have no such resources. When others reject or leave them, the loneliness feels omnipresent and unbearable. They might feel, as Carolina described, “like a piece of paper burned down to its ash.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Anxious people’s suppressed needs don’t disappear. Anxious people stew, building resentment for their unmet needs, endorsing statements like “I boil inside but I don’t show it.” They leak their feelings passive-aggressively, other studies show.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“They desire to build intimacy rapidly, to mitigate fears of rejection, diving into relationships where trust isn’t yet built. You’ll meet them at a party and ask how they’re doing, and they’ll tell you about their childhood trauma, their surgery, their suicidal urges, hoping the vulnerability will entreat you. Secure people, in contrast, let relationships unfold over time, and critically, while they are trusting, they adjust their initial optimism based on feedback they receive from others in real time. Research finds, for example, that secure people modulate their disclosures depending on whether the other person reciprocates, whereas anxious people disclose, no matter the response of the other party.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“They desire to build intimacy rapidly, to mitigate fears of rejection, diving into relationships where trust isn’t yet built. You’ll meet them at a party and ask how they’re doing, and they’ll tell you about their childhood trauma, their surgery, their suicidal urges, hoping the vulnerability will entreat you. Secure people, in contrast, let relationships unfold over time, and critically, while they are trusting, they adjust their initial optimism based on feedback they receive from others in real time.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Infants grow out of this stage at seven months, but avoidants never quite do, psychologically speaking. Friends move or change jobs, and when out of sight, they drop out of mind.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“object permanence,”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“But work isn’t the only way avoidants maintain their distance. They also erect rigid boundaries around friendships. They tend to be uninterested in mixing friends from different circles or migrating friends from one context to another, like inviting a work friend to their home for a potluck. As Gillath put it in one of his articles, “By allowing each friend to fulfill only one or a smaller number of functions than nonavoidant individuals, avoidant individuals reduce their dependence on each specific friend. This potentially reduces their concerns regarding trust and reliance.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“To keep others at bay, avoidants bury their heads in work, further satisfying our American ideals. Compared to other attachment styles, avoidants, research finds, are more likely to claim their work affects their happiness more than their relationships.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“responsibilities. When people try to connect with them, avoidants are closed off and distrusting, assuming others have ulterior motives.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Avoidants, like Jared, push others away, perceiving relationships not for the joy and fulfillment they bring but for their pressures and responsibilities.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“authentic. They are comfortable with intimacy and with engaging in behaviors that promote it, such as giving and receiving support and being vulnerable. Terry Real, a therapist and author, was right when he wrote in his book How to Get Through to You, “Sustaining relationships with others requires a good relationship to ourselves. Healthy self-esteem is an internal sense of worth that pulls one neither into ‘better than’ grandiosity nor ‘less than’ shame.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“A solid sense of self, unrattled by the skirmishes that inevitably arise in close relationships, gives secure people the composure to grant others grace, which explains why, research finds, they are better at maintaining friendships and less likely to get into conflict.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“The secure live the answer to this question. As mentioned, they’re more likely to initiate new friendships, as well as productively address conflict and share intimate things about themselves.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“One study found that when people were primed with security, their heart rate variability (changes in the time between heartbeats) didn’t fluctuate as significantly when they were socially excluded. But when people weren’t primed with security, it did. Heart rate variability fluctuates when our heart is responding to stress, leading the study’s authors to conclude, “Attachment may provide an important mechanism to increase adaptive responding to the distressing experience of social exclusion.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“If you trust people, you make them more trustworthy,” said Ernst Fehr, a professor at the University of Zurich and one of the authors of the study. The study lends credence to a psychological theory called reciprocity theory, which emphasizes that people treat us like we treat them. If we are kind, open, and trusting, people are more likely to respond in kind. Secure people, then, don’t just assume others are trustworthy; they make others trustworthy through their good faith.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“It’s tempting to assume secure people are setting themselves up for disappointment. By thinking others are trustworthy, won’t they get hurt? And won’t they overlook people out to harm them? But actually, assuming the best sets secure people up to receive the best.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“It’s common for people to exhibit more insecure attachment patterns when stressed. For example, I scored highest on secure, but higher on avoidance than I typically do. I’ve been so busy (working a full-time job and writing this book), which limits my resources to provide emotional support for others. After working so much, I just want to barricade the door, splay on the couch, and watch trashy and dramatic television.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Attachment is what we project onto ambiguity in relationships, and our relationships are rife with ambiguity. It’s the “gut feeling” we use to deduce what’s really going on. And this gut feeling is driven not by a cool assessment of events but by the collapsing of time, the superimposition of the past onto the present.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“They are more satisfied at work and are viewed more positively by co-workers. They feel less regret and are better able to roll with the punches of life. In typically stressful events, like math tests or public speaking, they keep calm.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“We’ll find that hundreds of studies reveal that the way we view others, interpret events, and behave have predictable impacts on whether we make and keep friends.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“In this chapter we’ll explore attachment theory, a groundbreaking framework that answers this question, and along the way, we’ll solve other questions about friendship, like who are we as friends and how did we become this way?”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“At one point in our lives, friendship was at the center of all our universes, like it is for Selina. And in that time—if it was healthy—it elevated our character, making us more moral, empathic, and whole. Callee’s story demonstrates that, through self-expansion, friendship helps us figure out who we are.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“In the words of Esther Perel, a famous couples’ therapist, “the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.” Oxytocin is the common denominator.[*]”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“While the evidence is still growing, studies suggest that having quality friendships in our past triggers our oxytocin and makes us more empathic, moral, and attentive and, in doing so, positions us as better friends.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Kids with moms who had higher levels of oxytocin exhibited higher levels of oxytocin and better friendships.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends